For Evelyne Valois, current president of the
association "Esquelbecq, Book Town ", while reading an article in a
French Hunting magazine in October, 2006, about the birth of
Fontenoy-la-Joûte Book village, she decides to take the plunge and
create a book town in Esquelbecq. Since always, books are part of her
life: bibliophile, she loves books and she likes this green small
village with an exceptional heritage, typical of Flanders, which is
Esquelbecq where she’s born, grow up and growth in her personal and
professional life.

This is how a French hunting magazine changed her
life; the inspiration was there to marry old stones and old books at
Esquelbecq! To realize what represents effectively such a project, she
organizes in January, 2007, a visit to Redu, book town in Belgium since
1984, with about ten persons already very interested by the concept. Ten
days later, a working group is set up and gives birth to the association
“Esquelbecq, Book Town”.

The town council, favourable to the project, offers
to rent available premises allowing several booksellers to move in.
Things start to move quickly, teams are formed to find financing and
fundraising, others to find professionals who would subscribe to the
project.

Since that day, passionate are always present and
they are, each year, more and more numerous in defending the Book Town
and striving to realize what passionate aims to achieve since 2007: THE
book town of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Region but also THE only book town
in the North of Paris.